Agile stakeholder management can feel a little jarring to your usual project manager. Not only does it move a lot faster than traditional project management, but there is a lot less time spent on planning. Depending on your project, that can be a great thing or something that keeps you up at night.
Either way, agile projects have stakeholders, too. Just like traditional ones, their expectations, needs, goals, and power needs to be monitored.
In this post, we are going to take a close look at the concept of “agile stakeholder management.” We will also cover the following.
- What are stakeholders?
- What is stakeholder management?
- What is agile?
- What is agile stakeholder management?
- Agile stakeholder management vs. traditional stakeholder management
- Agile stakeholder engagement (way different from management)
- How to manage stakeholders in agile projects
If you are looking to read about a specific topic, you can click on any of the above links to skip to that part.
The Basics. What are Stakeholders?
Stakeholders, in the most basic sense, are anyone who will be impacted by the outcome of the project. And we do mean anyone. They can be
- Customers
- End Users
- Business Consultants
- Members of the Legal Department
- Vendors
- Team Members
- Management
- Suppliers
- Vendors
- Etc.
See? The term really can include anyone.
But in most cases, when people are concerned with “stakeholders,” they are usually referring to those who have some kind of power or sway over the end product. They can either support your effort or hurt it.
There are different types of stakeholders, such as
- High Interest, High Power
- Low Interest, High Power
- High Interest, Low Power
- Low Interest, Low Power
A stakeholder’s interest means exactly what you think it means. It’s how much they care, how informed they want to be, and how close of a perspective they want to the project’s progress. Power is also what you’d think. It’s how much sway or influence they have over the progress and outcome of a project.
So, Then What is Stakeholder Management?
Stakeholder management is defined by the Project Management Institute as the process of managing, monitoring, and influencing stakeholder expectations, needs, and goals. It sounds complicated, and it can be if you let it get there.
The stakeholder management process usually goes like this (in a traditional setting).
- Stakeholder Identification – Figuring out who is a stakeholder and then understanding who you are working with as well as their background, their position, and their role in your project.
- Stakeholder Prioritization & Mapping – Understanding what level of power, interest, and expectation each of the stakeholders you identified holds.
- Assessment of Needs & Interests – Take the “interest” point a step further by discovering what people wither want out of the project outcome or what they expect that outcome to be.
- Motive Detection – Find out their “why” and what they want, whether that be the completion or the cancelation of your project.
- Planning – Put together the pieces of who you’ll communicate with and how often, what you’ll share, and how you will store the information you collected above.
All of this effort has one of two intentions. There is either a strategic goal or a legal goal. For example, you might go through all of this effort to make sure your project isn’t derailed by a force you couldn’t predict (strategic) or to make sure that those who regulate your niche don’t fine/penalize the crap out of you (legal).
What is the Agile Methodology?
As we mentioned before, agile project management is project management, but you just skip all the planning in the beginning. It’s more iterative. As most of us have seen, data and information have become the new currency. To combat that change, agile allows you to continue to take in information (like stakeholder input) and make changes as needed.
In the agile method, the end result is a more flexible concept than in traditional management. It doesn’t fit every industry or niche, but it tends to do well for those in IT and tech.
Another way we can look at agile project management is through the methodology’s four key principles or values.
- People – your team matters more than your tools.
- Results – the actual progress is much more important than the documentation of said progress.
- Collaboration – spending time working together will go so much farther than haggling about what exactly should be done.
- Adaptation – the plan is a guide, but it’s not set in stone. It’s better to respond to change than follow the plan.
There are two main differences between agile project management and traditional project management. The first is that a lot of the planning traditional management is used to goes out the window and is swapped for iterations. The second is that there are many different constraints, meaning the triangle representing a project’s constraints is inverted.
Instead of basing everything on the scope, you first establish the timeframe and cost. The scope is flexible. Everyone agrees that meeting budget and deadline restrictions are more important in agile project management.
How They Meet, Agile Stakeholder Management
Agile stakeholder management is the practice of making sure the project is safe from the expectations, goals, and influence of those around your project. The issue, as we mentioned before, is that there is less time to plan, so you have to be quick.
Almost immediately after terms are agreed to, documents are signed, and hands are shaken, you must get moving.
Classification & Selection
First, you’ll classify each stakeholder as one of the following types.
- Ignorant, they don’t know that the project is happening.
- Unsupportive, they don’t want the project to happen.
- Impartial, they are unaffected by it or don’t care about the project.
- Encouraging, they want the project to happen and are willing to help it progress.
- Leading, it’s their project, and they care very much about the outcome and performance.
In agile settings, this whole process is a bit less strategic than in traditional. That makes sense because you have less time to plan and set up a track. Following that logic, you will immediately need to select the group you work with on a regular basis.
This can be a challenge, especially in tech. They need to be 1) knowledgeable about the topic, 2) able to make decisions, and 3) have some kind of authority. In tech spaces, your stakeholders will be navigating a complicated environment involving
- The technology being used
- Legal requirements
- Data protection
- Customer requirements
- Ability and capacity of the team
So, looking for advocates (or collaborators) who understand is not unreasonable.
In addition, working with someone in a position of power can help move things along, communicate decisions, and back them up with the knowledge we mentioned before. It’s likely you’ll have to collect a group because it will be very difficult to find an individual who meets all three requirements.
The Difference(s) Between Agile Stakeholder Management and Traditional
The main differences between these two principles include the lack of planning leading up to the start of the project and the iterative nature. In a traditional project, the group of stakeholders you are able to communicate with is much larger. You might even be contacting each group or type throughout the project.
In agile, your scope is so flexible. Things are good as long as the work remains within the budget and deadline. You simply need to pivot when the situation calls.
As you’ve likely seen, the entire agile methodology is only useful in industries where preparation and vetting aren’t as necessary, such as software development and tech. In construction, this model would never work. The permitting process alone would completely undermine the whole idea.
How To Perform Agile Stakeholder Management, 7 Ways
The key principle of the agile methodology is to start. As soon as an idea is agreed upon, the work starts, the team gains momentum, and concepts are brought to life, but the end result is never actually set.
Communication is the core of stakeholder management. Agile stakeholder management is no different, but it requires faster pick-up. You have to decide very quickly who you are going to collaborate with and to what extent. We do not recommend that you merely move from task to task without considering who you could impact. That is a great way to kill your project.
Instead, we’d encourage you to follow a few simple guidelines.
- Put People First
- Document Just Enough
- Don’t Plan For Any Particular Changes
- Transparency = The Best Policy
- Collaborate Every Step Of The Way
- Get Creative About Communication
- Time Is Of The Essence
Each of these tips is explained in greater detail below.
1. Put People First
It’s not new news that people need support, especially stakeholders in an agile setting. It’s easy to reduce the humans you come in contact with as numbers and email addresses, but they are so much more than that.
Remember to treat them like people. Learn about them as people, communicate with them, and be as transparent as possible. Your stakeholders are the most important resource regarding this project’s requirements. Without effective management (of these people), you will waste resources, be haunted by all of the miscommunication, and potentially lose the project.
You have a small opportunity provided by agile stakeholder management. Don’t waste it by ignoring or dismissing the very people you need.
2. Document JUST Enough
As we’ve mentioned multiple times, agile projects move fast. Time is never really on your side. So, as opposed to traditional project management, you need to document just enough to cover your bases.
No documentation is a challenge, especially when working on tech or software-based projects, but it can be overcome. On the other hand, having no actual progress coupled with heavy documentation is asking to be yelled at.
While you should be documenting all throughout the project, it cannot be the main focus.
3. Don’t Plan For Any Particular Changes
Change management in traditional project management is extremely important because changes can ruin basically everything. In agile project management, change is expected, if not encouraged.
When working out the details of the project and putting them in writing, don’t put that much energy into change clauses. Instead, leave space for flexibility and collaboration. Find places to work with the customer as often as possible.
4. Transparency = The Best Policy
In traditional project management, the whole schedule can span months and years, which means a lot of “divide and conquer” is happening. People separate for a while to go off and do their jobs to reach a certain collective milestone. Agile doesn’t have that.
While you can work over the course of months and years on a project, you are meeting very, very often. You may be running to do sprints, but because there is no clear end result, you have to check in often and be sure you are moving in the right direction.
Because of that, you need to keep information, updates, and questions as visible as possible. You may not have time to send newsletters, and get feedback “whenever they get the chance.” By having an easily accessible resource, like management software, that can send direct notifications about updates, changes, or questions, you will be doing everyone a huge favor—as long as you add to it often.
5. Collaborate Every Step Of The Way
Not only should you let your stakeholders see what is happening, but you should also ask for their input. Agile stakeholder management is defined by communication and collaboration. That means you need to open yourself, receive feedback, and go do something with it.
Show them their thoughts, feelings, and concerns matter. Don’t just tell them. Bring them into everything you can—it will be worth it.
6. Get Creative About Communication
Understanding how each of your stakeholders wants to be communicated with is crucial to this whole concept and should be done first. For each individual stakeholder, find out the following information.
- How often do they want to be communicated with?
- How do they want to be contacted?
- What type of information do they want to be shared with them?
Everyone is busy. Everyone also has preferences. If they hate emails, have an extremely busy schedule, and would rather hear about good updates than bad ones, you don’t want to be the one to email them every 20 minutes about a new fire that has to be put out.
Also, you can invite them to all different kinds of spaces that support their engagement, such as
- Video Recordings
- Sprint Reviews
- Daily Scrums
- Emails Chains
- Management Software
If you take anything away from this section on communication, let it be this.
- Give them what they want, not what you think they want.
- Your time is precious, and so is theirs.
- Don’t use confusing language.
- Communicate with them the way they prefer.
- Make information as easy to access as humanly possible.
- Showing is always better than telling.
How you communicate with stakeholders can make o break your project, so handle this whole task with care.
7. Remember, Time Is Of The Essence
Not to be repetitive, but you really don’t have time. It’s always moving and trying to leave you behind. Your stakeholders feel the same way. So, as quickly and thoroughly as you can, learn about what they want and start giving it to them.
Almost everyone alive feels busy, overran, and like they are (at least) 20 paces behind—just like you. Handle your time (and theirs) with extreme care. You will be doing yourself and everyone you interact with a huge favor.
Agile Stakeholder Management, Worth It Only When You Do It
When you are on top of agile stakeholder management, you will drastically reduce risks to your project, save everyone time, save money, and build incredible foundations of trust. You can also enjoy new insights into products that your team just wouldn’t usually consider, which is always helpful.
It’s far too common for teams to be skeptical of this concept. They fear the added work of increasing stakeholder engagement, the additional admin work, and the possibility of bad feedback.
But by ignoring this concept, you make all of those issues worse. All your stakeholders truly, truly want is to be informed. Don’t just give updates and insights to those who reach out. Put in the effort of spreading it around.
We promise that any energy you put into this practice will pay you back tenfold.
Let New Ideas Find You
Here at A.McBeth, Inc., we know it’s better to open our thinking caps, receive new ideas, and use them occasionally than act like we know everything. Project management is pretty uncomfortable with that attitude, which is why we are offering up new (and old) ideas all month long, so sign up to be notified the next time one pops up. You won’t want to miss it!
